Active antenna arrays have the potential to improve and expand capability, reliability, and reduce life cycle costs for radar and communication systems. The primary components in these arrays are generally microwave multi-chip modules incorporating monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), associated power supply and conditioning components to drive these modules, signal processors, and distributed receiver/exciter (DREX) components. These components are typically packaged together in various individual assemblies known as Line Replaceable Units (LRUs) in the art for ease of maintenance and replacement. Furthermore, packaging the foregoing components together and distributed them throughout the array yields cost and performance advantages over more traditional “off-array” designs that alternatively locate some of these components in a central location.
Because the foregoing array components generate a significant amount of heat, the components have historically been attached directly to liquid-cooled coldplates to absorb and dissipate the heat, thereby cooling the array. The need to place these array components in direct contact with coldplates, however, has resulted in constraints on packaging of these components together into a compact space within a module. Moreover, the size of each microwave module is directly correlated to and further constrained by the size of the coldplate radiating element lattice size which is based on cooling performance requirements. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved and compact array component packaging architecture that adequately cools the components, yet maintains accessibility to the components for maintenance and replacement.